The NASCAR Xfinity Series playoffs are finally underway after a relatively typical weekend at Bristol. Noah Gragson managed to collect his third straight win as we head into the playoffs, giving him six total on the year. The NASCAR Cup Series and Xfinity Series will open the next playoff round at Texas Motor Speedway and as has been discussed in numerous NASCAR DFS and betting circles, this is a very boring race. It’s not the most exciting and the purses for both series aren’t that great. I’ll never fully understand how this track lasted so long with two races on the schedule each year, but it doesn’t produce the greatest racing and the re-pave five years ago didn’t help. But there’s still money to be made as a driver, and as a DFS player. So let’s dive into the NASCAR DFS picks for today’s race.

 

Texas is a 1.5-mile tri-oval that is considered an intermediate with higher speeds. That doesn’t always generate the best racing and nobody should be surprised if there’s one clear dominator collecting over 100 laps led and possibly the win. Saturday’s race is 200 laps in length broken into 45-45-110 lap segments with stage breaks. Additionally, tech was held on Friday for both Series and I haven’t heard of any noteworthy failures but I’ll double-check before this race goes green.

Practice Results

NASCAR DFS DRIVER PICKS

The driver pool is a bit thin at the moment but check back this afternoon following practice and qualifying. As always, updates will be in red.

Noah Gragson ($11,100) I would be a professional idiot if I left Gragson out of the Playbook after the run he’s been on. He’s won the last three weeks heading into the Xfinity Series playoffs. Talk about momentum. Now that the postseason is here, he definitely wants to go out with a bang and win the championship in Phoenix before he gets promoted to the Cup Series next year. If there’s one knock against him it might be some bad luck at this particular track. He wrecked in the Spring race here and has two other DNF’s at this track with no career wins. But he has led 30+ laps in two of his last four races here.

Justin Allgaier ($10,800) He’s probably my favorite play on the slate and I doubt I’m alone there. On intermediates and all the comparable tracks this year, he’s been great. He finished fifth at Vegas and led over 60 laps. He won Darlington-1 and finished fourth at Darlington-2. He also finished fourth with 33 laps led in the first Texas race and he was the runner-up at Michigan and Kansas. He won’t be a contrarian play, but he’s probably my favorite dominator especially if he qualifies up front. He doesn’t have any wins at Texas but he’s finished sixth or better in five of his last six races here with at least 20 laps led in four of those races. Ty Gibbs ($10,600) is a good pivot off Allgaier in the top tier. More recently at the high-speed intermediates, he won Michigan and finished third at Kansas while leading over 50 laps in each race and he’s looking to bounce back from last week’s performance at Bristol.

AJ Allmendinger ($9,900; Starting P7) I hate frontloading the Playbook with so many expensive plays. For the most part, Kaulig has struggled this year aside from Dinger on road courses. But the team has speed this week. Allmendinger posted the fastest single lap and then was second-fastest in ten-lap averages where a lot of the field struggled in the longer run. He was great on this style of track last year and I'm optimistic the team can hit the ground running in the first race in the playoffs. Daniel Hemric is a good contrarian play to save some money but he does start a little too high for my liking and the dominator potential is minimal starting on the second row.

John Hunter Nemechek ($9,700) I’m considering this a bit of an audition for JHN, although he’s already in the good graces with TRD. With Kyle Busch Motorsports transitioning to Chevrolet in 2023, it sounds like JHN does need a ride and with a couple seats opening up at Joe Gibbs Racing, this seems like a logical fit. JHN won this race a year ago driving for JGR and he’ll be in the 18-car that has shown plenty of speed regardless of who was behind the wheel. Surprisingly, he’s only run two races with JGR this year while the other seven were with Sam Hunt Racing. In the race at Richmond, he did lead 135 laps in this car and finished second. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a good showing at a track type like Texas that he’s done well at previously.

Brandon Jones ($9,500) Jones was fast in practice and qualifying and he landed the pole with an incredibly fast lap at nearly 29 seconds flat. He only had the ninth-fastest single lap in practice but was third-fastest in ten-lap averages in practice. He's an easy target for early dominator points and he could be optimal with 10-15 dominator points and a top ten finish.

Austin Hill ($9,200) and Sheldon Creed ($8,900) I’m going to lump the teammates together because they’re back-to-back in terms of pricing on DraftKings. They both had some success here in the Truck Series. Hill was arguably more consistent although Creed scored a win here two years ago leading over 100 laps. I lean targeting Hill over Creed slightly because he’s in the playoffs. However, there’s win equity with both (although Creed came up short plenty of times throughout the year), and most people could be like me and leaning towards Hill because of the playoff motivation. In Hill’s last 17 races he’s finished 15th or better 16 times including 12 top ten finishes, and six top five finishes. Creed did make an admirable late-season push to make the playoffs especially after he collected dominator points at both Darlington and Bristol. But he’s still looking to get that first win so the season isn’t a complete wash. Update: Both Hill and Creed are offering a little PD with Hill starting P9, and Creed starting P13. I'm still slightly partial to Hill.

Riley Herbst ($8,700) I don’t necessarily love Herbst, but he has three straight finishes in the top 12 at Texas and there’s upside for a top five. And if you’ve been following the news regarding his team engineer, DJ VanderLey, then you’ll know there’s some extra motivation this week for the 98-car. My concern with Herbst is the same as each driver priced beneath him in the $8K range; there’s too much inconsistency. It’s been a down year for Kaulig Racing so I’m not excited about Daniel Hemric or Landon Cassill (but that could change following qualifying). The same could be said for Ryan Sieg. Unless we get a clear PD target in this range, I don’t find myself loving the options here. But Herbst, Hemric, and Sieg at least have playoff motivations keeping them in play this week. With Herbst or anyone in this range, you aren’t getting any win equity, nor are you getting any dominator points. You’re really hoping for some PD and a top five to hopefully land 40+ points. Update: Good GPP play.

Jeffrey Earnhardt ($8,000) Slightly difficult price tag to swallow with Earnhardt, but he’s in the 26-car for Sam Hunt Racing and that’s not terrible. He started P35 earlier in the year in this car at Texas and grabbed a top 20 finish. I’d be surprised if he started that far back for Saturday’s race, but time will tell. He has a pretty good history at Texas so he shouldn’t be written off because of the elevated price tag. He ran well on the comparable tracks in the early portion of the 2021, but didn’t necessarily finish the year very well and he’s only on a part-time schedule this season. Proceed with caution but there’s upside. Update: Starting P27 puts him in play in all formats. I anticipate he'll carry a good amount of exposure across the field. Love him for cash games, but don't plug him into every GPP build.

Brandon Brown ($7,300) As is always the case with Brown, it’ll boil down to where he starts. But he’s back in the 68-car this week after spending most of the last month driving for other teams and finishing poorly. But with that said, he has four top 15 finishes in his last five races at Texas and the one race he didn’t finish in the top 15, he wrecked out. He’s looked strong at these high-speed intermediates after he finished 11th at Auto Club, 15th at the first Texas race, and he was 13th at Michigan. He even finished 17th at Kansas with Our Motorsports. Casual players may look at his recent results and lay off him, but knowing he’s driving for his own team has me optimistic he can have a good run here. My lone concern is they could look to save equipment and not wreck the car which does limit his upside. Update: Starting P22 with drivers like Myatt Snider and Anthony Alfredo starting behind him and they're slightly above him in pricing. All three of these drivers are in play, but ownership will likely be lightest on Brown while the other two have some inconsistency. Pick your poison.

Parker Retzlaff ($7,000) As excited as I was to see Retzlaff on the entry list, we have to keep in mind, this is a high-speed intermediate. We saw him perform very well on Richmond, Martinsville, Nashville, Dover, and Phoenix. We don’t have a ton of comparable tracks for Retzlaff but let’s not ignore the fact that he does have three top 12 finishes in five races. The cat is also out of the bag based on what he did earlier in the year as a very cheap option. So he will still carry some noteworthy rostership numbers. He can still hit value if he offers enough PD but let’s pump the brakes first and see how he looks in practice and qualifying. Another thing worth noting is that he’s not running the 38-car for RSS Racing. He’ll be in the 02-car for Our Motorsports and in my opinion, that’s a small downgrade in equipment. Update: Starting P23 and was just inside the top 20 on speed. I love the kid's potential but I think we see more ownership from him based on what he's done in his small sample size this year.

Josh Williams ($6,500) I'm once again sucked into Williams for this race. He's starting P30 and can move this car up eight spots and possibly more with a clean top 20 finish. 5X might be his ceiling though.

Nicholas Sanchez ($6,100) I’m curious as to where Sanchez will fall on the rostership spectrum, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he was a popular play in all formats. I don’t anticipate him qualifying incredibly well, but we can take comfort in the fact that we know the 48-car for Big Machine is good. Tyler Reddick drove it to a win earlier this year at Texas and now we get a discounted driver in good equipment. Sanchez’s small sample size leaves a lot to be desired. However, in the ARCA Series he’s performed well on comparable tracks this year with wins at Michigan and Kansas-1 while finishing second at Kansas-2. Update: Deep field GPP play here. Starting a little too high and I think he finishes right around where he starts.

Brennan Poole ($5,700) I’m probably one of the few people that believes Poole is still a good driver, who just gets stuck in crap equipment. But I’m interested this week because he’s filling in for Ryan Vargas in the 6-car for JD Motorsports. Still not the greatest equipment but better than what he’s run in the Xfinity and Truck Series so far this year. And this is considered Poole’s home track. Poole’s results this year are actually hilarious. He has ZERO top 30 finishes. In fact he’s finished just one of seven races in the Xfinity Series. But remember, that was with the 47-car for Mike Harmon Racing. It’s been five years but back in 2017 with Chip Ganassi Racing, this was a driver who had an average finishing position of 13.5, and in 2016 it was 12.4 so while JD Motorsports isn’t even CGR-esque equipment, this is still an upgrade and a driver I’ll have my eye on during Practice and Qualifying. Update: Similar to Sanchez, starting P21 is a bit too high but the driver is good enough to move up. Just a matter if the car can hold up.

Tommy Joe Martins ($5,600) Texas will mark Tommy Joe’s sixth race of the season as he’s transitioned to a larger role as an owner with Alpha Prime. Strangely enough, Texas is one of his better tracks with an average starting position of 27.4 and an average finishing position of 16.6. Comparatively, he also has similar average finishes at Kansas and Michigan so that only helps the DFS appeal. In five races following the re-pave of Texas Motor Speedway TJM has finished 18th, 21st, 10th, 15th, and 19th so a top 20 is within reason if the car holds up, but that has been an issue for this team all year. 

Bayley Currey ($5,400) Currey is an interesting play, as is the case most weeks. We know he can go out and finish top 20. Even at Texas, he has four top 20 finishes and six finishes in the top 22 in eight races. At this price tag? That’s not awful. It’s always one of those cases where he has fringe top 20 upside, but if he’s starting P25 or worse, then I’m interested. He’s had some solid runs on comparable tracks this year, but also some duds so he’s a fine GPP option. As a cheap pivot to save $100, I’ll throw CJ McLaughlin in the driver pool but mostly because he’s too cheap for a driver running in the 38-car for RSS Racing. We’ve seen this car finish between 10th and 20th this year, although McLaughlin is far from the best driver to get behind this wheel. Update: McLaughlin probably the safer play at the moment.

NASCAR DFS CORE PLAYS

The Core Drivers for Saturday’s race will be posted in the NASCAR DFS Discord Channel no later than 2:00pm ET.

 

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